VVMBookBlog

I’ve seen this book around in stores and then heard about it last weekend at a conference I attended for media specialists. The leader of this session was telling us about the “latest and greatest” in books, especially since everyone is out looking for “the next Harry Potter.” Well, for sure this book is non-traditional in so many ways.

First of all this is a 534-page book that can be read in about an hour, but readers should take more time than that to really appreciate this book. Reading this book is a little like watching a movie or reading a graphic novel because of all the pages of Selznick’s illustrations. In fact it’s a lot like reading one of our Everybody books, but an Everybody book that is more than the usual 32 pages!

Hugo Cabret is a 12-year-old orphan who has taken over his uncle’s job of fixing and maintaining all of the clocks in a Paris railroad station in 1931. His life holds many secrets, including the mechanical man [automaton=robot] he is hiding in his secret apartment within the train station, and his dead father’s notebook that might hold the answers to making the automaton work. However his experiences with the old toystore owner and his god-daughter, Isabelle, jeopardize all his secrets, and only bring up more questions to answer.

I can’t say much more without giving away too much information. I’ll just say that it’s an interesting look at the history of early films, and brings up thoughts about the purpose of things and people and what happens when things or people are broken.

A very unique book!

(Lexile-820)